Joyce Meyer - Are You Working From Approval or For Approval? - Part 1

TOPICS: Approval, Inferiority, Self-esteem

I wanna preach a message this morning that I'm just calling, "Are You Working From Approval or For Approval"? So, just think about that for a minute. Do you read your Bible? Do you give? Do you pray? Do you do some kingdom work trying to get God's approval? You feel like the more you do, the more God's gonna love you? Or do you already know how much he loves you, like they've been talking about all morning? All morning. And do you really, really, really know how much God loves you? And God sees the end from the beginning. And so, he not only sees what you do now and how you act now, but he sees what you're gonna become as the years go by.

And, you know, really, when we accept Christ, we're all a mess. Every one of us. Amen? I wanna make sure I'm not the only imperfect person here. But the good news is, is God loves you all the while you're changing. And you can love and enjoy yourself all the while that you're changing. When I started teaching the Bible, I started teaching a home Bible study in my home, and I did that for five years. And in case you haven't noticed, God's not in a hurry. I did that five years and it seemed like 500 years to me. But 25 people sat in my living room floor and I taught. And when I started teaching the Bible, I would sit there in short shorts, blowing smoke in everybody's face, smoking one cigarette right after another. And the shocking thing is, it was anointed.

Now, see, a lot of really "Religious" people wouldn't believe that. They wouldn't believe that you could possibly do something like that, and God would anoint you. But see, God saw today, and next year, and the year after that, and not only that, God saw my heart. And God sees your heart. Amen? And I know that, I know that we all say we know God loves us, but do we really? Do we really comprehend how much God loves us? Now, the Bible says that the first commandment is to "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it, love your neighbor as you love yourself". But 1 John 4:19 says, "We love him because he first loved us".

I just read a book recently that I thought was good. It was just a book on fellowshipping with God and it put it in a way that I'd never heard it. It said, "First of all, before you do anything else in your prayer and fellowship time, you take time to receive God's love". See, I usually wanna start off telling God how much I love him. But I've made a change, and it seems a little backwards, but I just sit and say, "I receive your love. I receive your love". You ought to try that. You know, the Bible never tells us to get anything it says to receive. And we say, "Did you get saved"? "Did you get your breakthrough"? "Did you get your miracle"? "Did you get healed"?

But that whole getting thing indicates works of the flesh. It indicates us trying to do what only God can do for us. And I brought this little sign all the way from st. Louis, just works of the flesh equals frustration. So, you can see it too. Works of the flesh, I wanna keep this simple, works of the flesh is your energy, you trying to do God's job. And the Bible condemns works of the flesh. Paul said, "God hates them". Any time you feel frustrated, now remember this, anybody ever get frustrated? Well, anytime you feel frustrated, it's because you're trying to do something that only God can do.

And you know, we receive Christ as our Savior, and then we really start to hear the word, and a lot of things get better, but a lot of things get harder, because as we study the word, we start understanding how many things we're doing wrong. And they were all things that before we did 'em, and we weren't convicted by it. You know, I could watch what I wanted to on television, I wasn't convicted by any of it. And don't you just hate it when you're 45 minutes into something, and then all of a sudden it gets dirty, and it becomes something that you know you shouldn't watch. And it's hard sometimes to turn it off, 'cause you wanna see the end. Amen?

So, we really are in a war, we're not only in a war with the enemy, but we're kind of in a war with ourself, because once you receive Christ, you're almost like two people. You know, you're that old man who's supposed to be dead, but he has a resurrection every now and then. And you're this new man, but the Bible says to "Put off the old man and put on the new man," and so, we're constantly doing that. And so I don't know if you're like me, but when I got serious about God, and I'd been a Christian a long time before I got serious, and maybe there's somebody here today or somebody watching that you, yeah, you go to church and you call yourself a Christian, you give a little, you're not a tither, but you give a little, but you aren't real serious.

You kinda got one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom, and you're a Sunday morning saint and a Monday morning sinner. But when you really get serious about God, then you start believing the Bible and you start being convicted that you ought to do what it says. And so, then we "Try". That becomes the big thing. We try to change. We try to behave. We try to be good. We try to read the Bible through every year and we just can't make it. We try to pray more than 10 minutes and we just can't seem to think of anything to say. We try to give, but we really wanna keep our money. I always say, "I tried until I almost died".

Come on, any of you know? You just try. You try so hard. I mean, I can lay in bed in the morning and make my plans for holiness. "Oh God, I'm gonna be so good today, I'm just not gonna say anything I shouldn't say. Gonna to be so sweet to Dave". It works until I get up and put my feet on the floor. Because you noticed in all that, I was telling God what I was gonna do, but I never one time asked him to help me. Come on. See, "You have not because you ask not". And I can remember in the early days I would go to church and maybe I'd hear a sermon on the mouth. And you know, all that was new to me, but I knew it was right. "Yes, my mouth gets me in trouble, I talk too much, I say things I shouldn't say. I'm harsh, sometimes I'm rude, I talk back to Dave, I need to be submissive".

And ooh, that was hard. It's gotten a little easier, but I've got a way to go. So, the pastor would preach on the mouth and I would, "That's it, I am gonna go home and I am gonna keep my mouth shut". And so that's exactly what I would do. I would not say anything. "Mm-hmm, hm-mmm". And then, people would say, "What? What's your problem? What's going on with you"? And then I would think, "Well, you try to do what's right, they don't like it. You do what's wrong, they don't like it". And see, the flesh is always extreme, always extreme. And so, it took me years to learn this, but I was leaving the one thing out of the equation that I needed and that was God's help. "I was gonna go home and I was going to not say things I shouldn't say. And I was going to be nicer and I and I and I and I". And yet Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do... Nothing".

I was trying to change myself, I was trying to change Dave, I was trying to change my kids, I was trying to make my ministry grow. Who do you have as a project right now? Boy, you're squirming in those seats. We leave hints for people and leave Joyce Meyer books laying around, open to just the right page, turn that television up loud. When you have a problem, all of a sudden, a problem comes, do you ever say, or have you ever said, "Well God, I just don't understand"? "I tithe, I pray two hours every morning, I read the Bible through every year, and I go to church every week, and I serve in church, I'm a greeter, I'm an usher, I work in the nursery".

You know what we're really saying? "It's because I've done these things, now you owe me. You owe me". And God doesn't owe any of us anything. We're blessed to be breathing. Amen? And if you have ever said that or thought that, that's an indication right there that you're doing things to get God to do something for you, you're not doing them because of what he's already done for you. See, I just wanna see a little turn this morning in a few people's lives where you don't do anything to get God to do something for you, but everything you do, you do it because you know that he loves you and he is so good and he gives you so much favor and it's just like, should be awestruck at what God does for us. It's tremendous. We're gonna start with salvation.

Scripture that we should all be familiar with and probably are, but boy, this is a scripture that, talk about meditating on the word, if you would take Ephesians 2:8 and 9 and just really take your time. We read the Bible too fast. We read it for quantity instead of quality. This scripture is jaw-dropping amazing. "For it is by free grace", free. "(God's unmerited favor)", unearned, undeserved, "That you're saved (delivered from judgment and made a partaker of Christ's salvation) through your faith". So, grace is the price that paid for it and faith is just the hand that reaches out and receives it. And even that faith God gave us that. "Unto every man is given the measure of faith".

That's why it's kinda silly to say, "Did you get saved"? You don't "Get" anything. You receive it. You receive it. They received the Holy Spirit. They didn't get the Holy Spirit. And we say that a lot, don't we? "Did you get the Holy Spirit? Did you get your breakthrough? Did you get saved"? No. We need to learn how to receive. How to receive. "And this salvation is not of yourselves [it's not of your own doing, it came not through your own striving], but it is the gift of God: not because of works [not the fulfillment of the law's demands], lest any man should boast. [it is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself]".

But here's what I want to say to you. We kind of sort of believe that and receive it when it comes to salvation, but the same way that we're saved is the same way we should live our lives. One girl gets it. Well, what did you do when you received Christ? You just kinda like, "I'm at the end of myself. I can't do this. I don't have anything to offer you. Just take me and do something with me". And that's the same way that we need to live every day. "God, I cannot do this without you. I need you. I need your help". Yes, we can do things, but we can only do them through Christ.

You say, "Well, there's all kinds of unbelievers that do all kinds of great things". Yes, but they're not happy. They don't really have joy. We see what happens to so many of their lives. We get to have so many blessings in our life, but God's giving them to us. We're not getting them, and so we have them with joy, and we have them with peace. And even when we don't have them, we can have joy, and we can have peace. I don't know if we know how blessed we are. God's love is unconditional. His love is not based on anything we do. His love is not even something that he does. It's who he is. God is love.

Why did God create us? Well, I've heard he wanted somebody to worship him. No. He wanted somebody to love him. No. You know why? Because God doesn't need anything. He doesn't need one thing. Do you know why he created us? He wanted someone to love. Because, come on. He created you because he wanted somebody to love. The Bible says in Ephesians that he loves us because it was his kind intent. He loves you because he wants to. Not because you're lovable. Not because you do everything right. Oh, some days you're better than other days, like me, but you know, we're gonna be making mistakes until Jesus comes back to get us. Thank God, then, we'll be changed "In the twinkling of an eye". Won't that be good?

All the stuff we tried to do, all of a sudden, whoo! We'll be changed. And I don't think God's bothered at all by our imperfection. All he wants from us is that we keep growing, just little, by little, by little, by little that we keep growing. Why do we think that we're doing God a favor by reading the word? We're not reading it for him. He already knows it. He gave us the word for us. And we, really, if you look at it right, we'd have to be a little bit loose in the head to not want to look in there and see what he says and what he promises us. We don't have to give. You don't have to give.

Wherever the offering things are, they want you to go to and give 'em. You don't have to give. You're not gonna go to hell if you don't give. But man, if you realize what God's done for you, you know the best way that you can show your love for God is by doing something for somebody else? If you wanna know how you can really show that you love God, it's by doing something for somebody else. You know, Christianity is not about just coming to church and sitting in a seat and gawking at some preacher on the stage. I know my outfit's good. I worked hard on it.

You know, Jesus said to Peter, "Peter, do you love me"? Peter said, "Yes, Lord, I love you". And Jesus said, "Feed my sheep". "Peter, do you really love me"? "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you". "Well, feed my lambs". And the third time he asked Peter, "Peter, do you love me"? Well, Peter's starting to get a little bothered by this now. "Yes, Lord, you know I love you". And so, he said again, "Feed my sheep". Now, what was that all about? You know what I believe he was saying? "If you love me, then help somebody".

Every one of you, every day, should be praying for and looking for people that you can help. I remember somebody that worked for us, one day, telling me that somebody else that worked for us had moved into an apartment and they'd been there like a year and they were still sleeping on a mattress on the floor because they didn't have the money to buy a bed. And she said, "But I'm praying for her". You know what God told me one time? "Why don't you stop asking me to do things that you could easily do and just don't want to"?

If God's gonna do it, he's gonna have to get the money from somebody: why not you? Right? God doesn't give us money just to pile it up in some account somewhere so if we happen to live to be old, we got lots of money. Yeah, I think you should save for the future, but to be honest, some people say, "Well, tithing was under the law and we don't have to do that today". No, you don't have to, but I guess I think if they could tithe under the law, what should we be doing by grace? I mean, tithing is like a little tickle.

Paul says, "To give generously". You should study that word. Far, over, above, and beyond overflowing and you know, don't get legalistic with God about your giving. Don't count it up. Just every opportunity you get to be a blessing to somebody, whether it's giving them a compliment, praying for them, encouraging them, or hearing of a financial need that they need. At my staff, I have them give me a list, each department manager, every quarter, of people in our own ministry that they know really have a serious need.

And we have a fund there called "Love In Action" where employees can give into that for other employees. And then if there's not enough to meet the needs, then Dave and I take care of the rest of it. And what's the sense in helping the whole world if I'm not gonna help my own people? That doesn't make any sense. Look around you. Listen to what people say.